The lawyer of a man who spent 17 years wrongly imprisoned and received just £46 from the state has called on the Lord Chancellor to urgently reform compensation arrangements for the victims of miscarriages of justice following a decision to make an interim ‘six figure’ payment to Andrew Malkinson.
The Justice Gap has featured the case of Victor Nealon over the years – including this interview with him where he talks of how he almost ended up on the streets after having his conviction overturned. Nealon was refused compensation as a result of a 2014 change in the arrangements which means that a victim of a miscarriage has to prove their innocence ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’. The post 2014 scheme was described this month by Jon Robins and Glyn Maddocks KC in the Guardian letters pages as ‘mean-spirited and legally illiterate’.
His lawyer, Mark Newby has written to the justice secretary Shabana Mahmood MP drawing attention to the ‘stark similarities’ between the Victor Nealon and Andrew Malkinson’s case. As reported this month, Malkinson is to receive an initial ‘six-figure’ compensation payout from the government after suffering one of the worst miscarriages of justice in modern times, becoming one of a tiny handful of wrongfully convicted people to receive any recompense in the last decade.
‘Both men were convicted of rape against a female unknown to them, both denied their offences but were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment,’ Mark Newby writes. ‘Both men when arrested offered their DNA and agreed to take part in identification procedures. Subsequently identification procedures took place both of which were disputed as unreliable and subject to non-disclosure . Both men had initial unsuccessful appeals.’ Andrew Malkinson appealed on the basis of developments in DNA testing and Nealon on the basis of DNA tests showing his DNA was not present which pointed to an unknown male. The ‘only difference’, according to Newby, was a search of the DNA database found a potential match for the unknown DNA in Malkinson’s case.
The question which arises is ‘why Andrew Malkinson should be compensated, and Victor Nealon only receive a £46 travel warrant from the state following the quashing of his conviction on similar terms’. ‘It should certainly not be based on the exceptional public pressure and political fallout that uniquely followed the Malkinson case,’ Mark Newby adds. The solicitor argues that his client is ‘morally entitled to be compensated for the 17 years of incarceration he suffered wrongly’ as are others including Sam Hallam.
Sam Hallam and Victor Nealon challenged compensation arrangements which meant them being refused support despite overwhelming evidence of their innocence which went ended up the Supreme Court before going to Strasbourg. The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights ruled last year that the test set by the legislation represents a hurdle which is virtually insurmountable’. According to that ruling, only ‘around three percent’ of individuals whose criminal convictions have been quashed were awarded compensation – 13 out of 346 applications. That court noted its role was not to determine how the UK should change its laws to reflect ‘the moral obligation they may owe to persons who have been wrongfully convicted’.
